Your poster on Nation of Islam needs to (i) get some basic education in the history of NoI, (ii) Orthodox Islamic views of NoI, (iii) medication.

Salafistes consider NoI to be kufaar, who engage in the deep sin of shirk; i.e. infidels who engage in the profound sin of polytheism. There is not going to be an alliance between them. What utter tripe. Really, comically chicken littleish.

Salafistes consider NoI to be kufaar, who engage in the deep sin of shirk; i.e. infidels who engage in the profound sin of polytheism. There is not going to be an alliance between them. What utter tripe. Really, comically chicken littleish.

That'd be as crazy as an East Asian island nation forming a well-thought-out alliance with European Aryan-supremacists...

I was far more interested in the attempt to organize/recruit street gang angle.

Interestingly enough, I once attended a Farrakhan speech and listened to him rant for a good hour before I became bored with the proceedings and left. He's part con man and part kook though he is, in his own way, an effective orator.

First, jahaliyah is a different if related concept. Theoretically it is possible to be "ignorant" of the "truth" of Islam as jahiliyah implies without engaging in shirk - polytheism (or more literally "associating other powers with God" / believing in other gods).

Shirk by supposed Muslims is, for the Takfir school (and indeed generally Salafi - Wahhabite thinking) among the worst possible sins for Muslims to engage in. It is, quite literally, apostasy and thus punishable by death.

The fact NoI engages in not even discussable but quite clearly open shirk in regards to its precepts is a non-trivial issue.

This leads me to Dan's absurd examples, which are superficial.

the alliance between communists and Islamists in Iran?

Well, different problem there, if you knew the actual history of the Communists in the Islamic world you'd know that they were never open athiests and that the Islamist wing of the Iranian revolution (Shia in case you had forgotten, and thus not of the same school of thinking as Sunni salafism) was not and is not unfavorably disposed to socialism.

No fundamental contradiction there, nothing of the same order.

Or Maronites and Israelis in Lebanon?

Maronite Xians of Lebanon? What point do you think you're making? The Israeli collaborating Maronite factions were not Arab nationalists, and indeed the fascist Phalange had/has a nice little "we're not Arabs" philosophy; quite happy to have Israeli assistance in beating on the Palestinians who being largely Muslim or Orthodox Xian were upsetting an already negative demographic balance for the relatively declining Maronites.

So, again, bzzt. No analogy, no traction.

Or, for that matter, the Caliphate and Visigoths in Spain?

What about them? The Arabs crushed the Visigoths.

However, I rather suspect you were actually thinking of the reconquista period, and the nice little mix of cross alliances between Muslims and Xians in regards to the cross cutting kingdoms fighting.

Nice, except the observation is proved by the behaviour of the actual ideologues, the conquests by the al-Murabtine for example. Salafi ideologues in many ways. No alliances, lots of nasty slaughter, little flexibility.

Or Crusaders and Turks in the Crusades?

Same as the Spanish Reconquista, the ideologes were not the ones cutting deals.

Merely pointing to cross-religious deal cutting is not making your point, it's illustrating your lack of background in the relevant history.

The point being, deal cutting does indeed happen, however it will happen betwenen the pragmatists or when with ideologues, within certain bounds.

(i) Shia and Sunni Islamism are not the same thing in ideological terms. Rather differently structured, and if you can't get your deficient mind around that, not my problem. I'm sure superficial, poorly informed analogies are easier to sell.

(ii) Get your basic history right before pretending to start a conversation, I dislike drooling wankers. The Arab invasion of Visigothic Spain did not involve Christians, the army that crushed the Visigoths was Arabo-Berber. Of course, the Visigoths got little support it appears, although records are sparse. Regardless, you're confusing different historical periods; and moreover painting ideology on an Arabo-Berber army dominated by Berbers that the Arabs themselves painted as out for booty (new and rather facile converts) - not that it has much meaning to the example one way or another.

Leaving aside your piss-poor knowledge of the history, the hand waving confusion between ideologue and pragmatist, the point remains - taking the Iberian peninsula as the example - the groups driven by ideology similar to modern Salafisme: the Almoravides for example, did not cut deals, they washed the streets in blood and engaged in a lot of takfir. However, their pragmatic Muslim brethren in situ did cut deals with the Xians and .... fought against them even. In short, the "Do not Deal with Kafirs and those Engaged in Shirk" purists/ideologues behaved as one would have expected. Of course later generations, passion cooling, relearned pragmatism.

Your example rebounds against you (out of your own ignorance of course), although I rather get the sense in your flailing that "Muslim"=idelogue, a rather simple minded piece of silliness.

First amplifying regarding Shia:An irrelevent distinction, here. I was demonstrating the human ability to form alliance with natural enemies in order to achieve ends.

So says he wno knows nothing of the distinction.

In fact it goes to the heart of the issue; for all that the Communists were secularists, they were and remain Iranian Muslim nationalists. The Shia Islamists of Iran were the same, and the bloody key point here is the different attitude in regards to the issue of Shirk and takfir, especially within the Muslim community. I.e. the ideological space for cooperation.

But of course you prefer to remain with the simple card board cut out understanding, all the same, no difference, a camel is the same as donkey because they have four legs.

Leaving that aside, the core issue here is quite simple: the idiocy of thinking NoI's usual antics against "White Authority" have anything the fuck to do with al-Qaeda Salafisme or that there is some real chance of (ooh scary black people) urban street gang alliance against the police and via NoI, with takfiri jihadism.

It's simple minded idiocy.

However, there is nothing new or novel in the idea of the Salafine recruiting among the disaffected: Jose Padilla and Richard Reid being merely the most publicized. France has seen similar things happen.

This is nothing new and should be expected. Recruitment among NoI over to the "True Islam" is possible. An organisational alliance is an idiotic scare-mongering fantasy based on profound ignorance of both sides of the equation with the only real link being "Islam / Muslim" as scare words.

I have to qualify my comments by saying that by formal training I am a diplomatic historian with an emphasis in the 20th century and specialty in U.S.-Soviet relations. Medieval Iberia is far, far, afield.

I think regarding the Visigoths it is important to remember that they wore their Christianity rather lightly. They were still semi-barbarians and while we call it the Visigothic " kingdom" in Spain, well, that's putting things grandly. Much like calling your condo or duplex your " estate".

The Germanic barbarian conception of Kingship did not run along the stable patrilineal, proto-nation-state lines of the high and late middle ages period called " bastard feudalism". It was a lot more loose and personalized which is why Charlemagne's empire collapsed a century later after his death. His heirs, being good semi-barbarian, superficially Christianized, Franks, divided their "Holy Roman Empire" up into separate chieftainates.

My other comment, though this is of little use to either of you, is that Spain has a historical tradition of incredibly brutal military conflict starting with the Romans putting down the indigenous Iberians.

The Reconquista, the Pennisular campaign/guerilla war against Napoleon, the Spanish Civil War - whatever the age, conflict in Spain usually seemed to be more violent and atrocity-ridden than the prevailing standrard of warfare of the era.

In short, reducing this to hard Muslim vs. Christian categories obscures the nature of the combatant armies. Some were probably zealous and indoctrinated Muslims or Christians but most were just quasi-tribal warriors a half-step removed from paganism.

Well, so what being the issues the Shia Islamists have regarding shirk and takfir are very, very diffrent from those of the Sunni takfiris, and indeed their ideological disposition in regards to working with Sunnis (fine) is utterly different than the takfiris (kill the Shia scum).

If you are unable to grasp that there are profound differences between their approaches that have substantial impact on their openness to collaborating with others, then you are far dimmer than I suspected.

That's exactly as useful as denying the law of planetary motion because "Mars and Venus are not the same thing in planetary terms."

No, rather it is like pretending that because there is some set of physical laws, that every planet has the same orbital scheme.

Well... there is no need really. The history here is rather simple if thinly attested. The Visigothic "state" was weak, riven by division and had alienated (in similar ways to the Byzantine state) the Iberian population.

It collapsed like a house of cards in the face of the fairly disciplined Arabo-Berber armies.

Of course the Arabo-Berber armies during this invasion would be hard to characterise as ideologically driven Jihadis. Quite the contrary, most of the Berbers were new converts in for the booty (as the Arabs complained, perhaps unfairly) more than the religion, and often due to tribal politics.

In short, your harping about the Visigoths merely illustrates you don't have a bloody clue.

At least the Reconquista throws you a bone, but then much of the Reconquista period was characterised by quite un-ideological power-struggles involving enormous amounts of horse-trading.

But then I already made this point supra.

you're confusing different historical periods

I'm showing the universality of human nature. A different thing entirely.

An amusing pretension.

Human nature is indeed universal - as well as complex - that does not mean you have not confused different historical periods and moreover lack the knowledge to even begin to characterise the motivations.

In short, the "Do not Deal with Kafirs and those Engaged in Shirk" purists/ideologues behaved as one would have expected.

Ah --- unable to support the contention that "ideologues" behaved non-pragmatically, you change your word choice from "ideologue" to "purist/ideologue." Again, nice.

No, I have been quite able to support that (you may review my constant factually based corrections to your faux illustrations for that), you whinging git, however you seem to have a rather different idea of ideologue than I do, thus trying to get you on the same page.

in your flailing that "Muslim"=idelogue,

Did you miss my use of the Crusades as an example?

Precisely, it supports my point precisely - should you care to obtain something approaching a reading of the history rather than childish use of labels.

Review Lewis' works on the Crusade period. There is a rather clear pattern of the burning ideologue coming in to upset the applecart, while the pragmatists (sometimes former ideologues who abandoned their non-pragmatic ways - always those who settled down and built relationships) reached modus vivendi.

Communists were secularists, they were and remain Iranian Muslim nationalists.

It's not a motherfucking overgeneralisation, it is a motherfucking statement of fact. The Communist movements in the MENA region have been all nationalist and non-athiest. Non-Muslim membership in the region is trivial and unimportant.

But of course you prefer to remain with the simple card board cut out understanding, all the same, no difference, a camel is the same as donkey because they have four legs.

No, but they both share characteristics of grazing mammals because they are both grazing mammals.

Indeed we have a fine illustration of the profoundness of your puerile analysis.